An award-winning documentary film “Gerrymandering” opens in movie theaters across the nation on October 15. It is directed by Jeff Reichert, and is sharply critical of the method that most states use to draw boundaries for U.S. House districts, and state legislative districts.
The campaign in favor of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, www.yes20no27.org, has secured permission to e-mail DVDs of the film to California voters. The campaign in favor of keeping the Commission, and for expanding it to include U.S. House districts, has already mailed DVDs to many voters in California. For example, it appears all registered Republicans in San Francisco have already received a free copy of the DVD. Any California voter may request a free DVD of the film by e-mailing to “email@yes20no27.org”. The two dueling ballot measures in California, on redistricting, are Proposition 20 and Proposition 27. One needs to know this to be able to read that e-mail address, so as not to be confused between zero and the letter “o”. Thanks to Eric Garris for this news.
More promotion of single winner districts…like we really need that, Richard. You are so biased, it’s not funny.
My all-time favorite quote: “The people are uninformed and can be easily misled by designing men.” – Elbridge Gerry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
Who needs a movie ???
Half the votes in half the gerrymander districts = about 25 percent ANTI-Democracy minority rule — MUCH worse with primary math.
Too difficult even for New Age movie makers to detect ???
P.R. and App.V. — to END the EVIL special interest gang oligarchies/monarchies in the U.S.A.
I saw the movie last weekend at the Woodstock(NY) Film Festival, and I liked it. There at the end was a brief discussion of PR and modern multi-party politics. The bulk of the movie is entertaining, fast-moving, and not too wonkish at all. Jeff Reichert was in attendance and we all got to talk to him afterwards. He’s a serious, committed guy and it is worth the $10 I paid to see it. I encourage you all to do the same if you can.
@Pete
I’m glad the film at least mentions PR systems as a solution to the problem. This is by far better than using computer generated district lines. I hope he dispelled the myth that PR systems equate to losing geographical representation. As readers here likely know, districts of at least five seats using a PR system give us a decent threshold for electing a candidate(about 17%). And we don’t sacrifice too much in geographical representation. We need to learn that any time we can avoid single-seat districts, we should (minus the exception of a mixed proportional system like Germany’s).
I’d like to see a reference sometime to the US’s history with STV as described at the PR Library by Douglas Amy. I’ll have to take your advice to check this out. Thanks for the extra info.
New Zealand — one more ex-Brit colony switched to MMP as in Germany in the early 1990s.
Are the SMD winners in the MMP systems any less arrogant powermad than the SMD winners in the U.S.A. ???
100 percent P.R. — Total Votes / Total Seats = Equal votes needed by each seat winner — in the ENTIRE legislative body area involved.